Flight of the Tiger Moth Read online

  Jack stroked the puppy as he rode slowly down the street, going back once more in his mind to happier times, trying not to think about Sandy dead or a prisoner of ­war.

  Was he dead? Jack shuddered. He pulled away from that thought faster than a lone deer from a pursuing ­coyote.

  Jack patted the pup’s head so hard Buddy ­woofed.

  Chapter ­7

  The bachelor twins, Arnie and Melvin Hobbs, sat in their regular places on two wooden captain’s chairs on the front porch of the store. They wore their usual old suit trousers with wide-cuffed legs, held up by suspenders and a belt. Their work boots looked dusty and ­worn.

  Arnie wore a crumpled straw hat and sported a ragged grey beard on his weathered face. “Well, if it isn’t Jackie Waters,” he said. “What have you got there?”

  “Didn’t know you had a dog,” Melvin chimed in. “Where’d you get it?” He blew his nose on a blue cowboy hankie and lifted the stained grey fedora perched on his bald head and smoothed his pink ­skull.

  “I found Buddy in the ditch on the road to the base. His mother had been shot in the head and there was a sack with three dead puppies, and this little fellow.”

  Arnie nodded. “We know who in town has black dogs.”

  “Thought I heard gunfire earlier this morning,” said Melvin. “Those Boyles use their guns too dang much.”

  “Don’t care if I never see a gun again,” Arnie said. “The Great War chased away any love of guns we ever had, right Mel?”

  Mel reached over and patted his brother’s ­arm.

  Inside, Jack could see his dad waiting on Mrs. Nelson, Repete’s grandma. He slipped in quietly and took a great swig of store air into his lungs. There was something reassuring about this place. He’d grown up playing blocks on the floor, surrounded by the comforting smells of the pickle barrel, the flour bins and the tall glass jars with the strong, ­molasses-­tasting hoarhound toffee, liquorice twists, sweet and sours and sugar sticks. He liked the cool and musty air, the dark wooden panels, the worn pine floors and the crowded shelves. He moved to the back of the store by the buckets of nails, screws, nuts and ­bolts.

  He leaned against the rickety ladder they used to fetch goods from the top shelf, ­waiting.

  “Can you deliver these this afternoon?” The old woman peeled a couple of dollar bills off a little stack she had in her leather purse. “Young Pete and his friend Jimmy Boyle have landed jobs working in Moose Jaw on construction. They wanted jobs at the air base, but they didn’t have any luck.”

  She stared fiercely at ­Jack.

  “That’s too bad,” said Bill ­Waters.

  “They barrelled out of here really early this morning in an old truck Jimmy bought for a hundred dollars from a farmer. Took old Boyle’s favourite dog. Not that she’s much use now that she’s lame. Said they wanted to do some gopher hunting. Then they’d head to the city to look for rooms.” Jack waited for the old lady to take a breath, but she went right on. “So many people are moving to Moose Jaw, it’s a wonder anyone’s left in the smaller places.”

  “Jack’s got a job at the air base, part time,” Dad said. “Why aren’t you out there, son?” They headed toward the front of the ­store.

  “I didn’t make it this morning.” Jack pointed through the screen door to the puppy sitting in the carrier basket outside. “I got waylaid by that little fellow – whimpering in the ditch.”

  “Looks like one of the Boyles’ pups,” reflected Mrs. Nelson. “Their old bitch tangled with our collie and threw a bunch of pups a while ago. They usually drown them, seeing as we’ve enough dogs running around. Where’d you find him?”

  “I guess he was lost.” Jack didn’t want to tell the whole sad tale to Mrs. Nelson. It wasn’t her ­fault.

  “I could bring these groceries over right away,” he said. He walked out onto the ­porch.

  “I’ll be home in half an hour,” said Mrs. Nelson as she headed down the steps to the dusty main street, leaning heavily on a cane made of shellacked diamond willow with a rubber foot to stop it from ­sliding.

  The brothers nodded as she passed. Arnie was down by the bike, patting the pup. “He’s a solid little fellow. Must be about eight weeks old or so. Hefty, too. Well over five pounds, probably the strongest of the litter. What do you reckon, Mel?”

  “He’ll be a big dog. Look at his paws.”

  Jack went down the steps and brought the pup up to the porch and stood by the door. He wanted to keep this pup so bad he could hardly ­swallow.

  “Mom wants me to find the dog a home.”

  “What did she say?” Jack’s dad asked, standing by the screen ­door.

  Jack told him. “I’m afraid I really upset her. I didn’t mean to.”

  “This isn’t about the dog, Jack. It’s about Sandy and the war and the accidents around here with young fliers.” Bill Waters stood in the shade behind the screen door. “Ivy’s always been a worrier, but now it’s worse.”

  He sighed and walked back across the floor of his store. He closed the flour bin, tightened the lid on the sugar, wiped his hands on his canvas apron and sat down in a captain’s chair by the unlit woodstove, his legs stretched out in front of him, his long, pale fingers massaging his rarely lit pipe. “I should probably close up and go home, see how Ivy’s doing. I’ll deliver Mrs. Nelson’s groceries on the way.” His father motioned Jack inside with the ­dog.

  Jack stepped back into the store, his eyes blinking from the darkness of the interior. “I really want to keep this dog, Dad.”

  “You better phone Harold at the maintenance shop and tell him you’ll be late.”

  “I’ll do that in a moment.”

  “Now, tell me about the dog.”

  Jack told him. “I didn’t have a chance to tell Mom how I saved Buddy’s life. If I hadn’t been going down the road when I did, he’d have died – suffocated or something. I feel responsible for him now.”

  “I can understand that.” His dad ­nodded.

  “But Mom had Flo’s letter in her hand. She’d been reading it again and making cookies. She said there was no way she’d let me keep a dog. She didn’t trust them. Then she said something about chaos.”

  “One thing you don’t know about your mother, Jack. She was bitten by a black dog when she was a little girl growing up in Arcola.”

  “But Buddy’s just a baby. We’d train him.”

  Bill Waters smiled. “Ivy wouldn’t let Spike in the house and he was my dad’s dog.”

  “I always wondered why the dog had to sit in the yard.” Jack remembered Spike whining pitifully, sitting by the ­pump.

  “My dad didn’t like leaving him outside either. But it kept the peace.”

  Jack perched on the other captain’s chair, holding Buddy on his lap. He wasn’t built like his dad, long and lanky. He was shorter, like his mom. Everyone said he looked like his Uncle Jack, who’d flown with Wop May, a flying legend and a Canadian prairie ­hero.

  “The least we can do is get the wee fellow well equipped.” Dad took the pup in one arm and walked behind the counter and over to the section with pet supplies. He chose the smallest collar, a leash and a couple of bowls and brought the dog back to Jack. “Hold him while I make a hole in this collar so it’ll stay on.”

  Bill went to his workbench in the back room and came back shortly with a new hole drilled for the buckle in the small leather collar. He wrestled with the pup, finally doing the collar up and attaching the leash. Jack put the puppy down. Buddy promptly squatted and peed on the wooden ­floor.

  “You’ll have to train him.”

  “I know.”

  His dad filled one bowl with water and another with dog food and put them down on the floor. Jack mopped the ­floor.

  “Why don’t you tie him to the front stoop?” Bill cut a ­ten-­foot length of ­half-­inch rope and handed it to Jack. “I’ll try talking to your mother. It may take a while. You watch the store. And don’t get your hopes up, Jack.”

  “I won
’t.” But he knew he would. Buddy was his ­dog.

  Jack tied the pup up outside and washed his hands in the back room before he phoned the airfield and told Harold why he hadn’t gotten to work on ­time.

  “Why don’t you bring Buddy out to meet the new students?” laughed Harold. “These kids are so young and lost they could use a little cheering up. As usual, I can’t understand a word they’re saying.”

  “I have to watch the store for a couple of hours. I’ll be out after lunch.”

  “Good.”

  Jack was about to hang up when Harold shouted into the phone. “Don’t forget to bring Buddy.”

  The puppy yipped and yapped as Jack hung up the receiver. Jack climbed the ladder that slid on a track along the high shelves to put away some tins his father had left out on the counter. Before he could get down, a farmer came into the ­store.

  “Where’d you get the dog, Jackie?”

  They didn’t need a weekly newspaper in Cairn – they had the Waters store. Jack wondered if people really came to shop or just to discover what was going on in town.

  Chapter ­8

  Jack reached the guardhouse shortly after one o’clock and showed the guard his civilian pass with his photo on it and the typed note with his job description. The new Royal Air Force boys were on parade in the square, marching in precise formation in their blue ­uniforms.

  “They don’t look any older than you, Jackie,” said the guard. Then he did a double take as Jack rode through the gate. “You smuggling a pup onto the base?”

  “Harold wanted me to bring Buddy – to show the guys in the maintenance shop.” Jack told the guard his story. “Can I take him in with me?”

  “Don’t know any rule against it.” The guard went into his little house and back to his reading. Jack had been inside one rainy day. The guy must have had a ­two-­foot-­tall stack of comic ­books.

  Jack and Wes each had a pile of comics themselves. They saved up to buy them whenever they went into Moose Jaw, then traded back and forth. Some were so ­dog-­eared they hardly held together. Superman was Jack’s favourite, because he flew into Metropolis and rid the city of the bad guys. Jack wasn’t any superman, but he knew he was hooked on ­flying.

  Jack suspected he was too old for comics, but some nights, after studying algebra or chemistry, writing an essay or reading Shakespeare, he liked to give his brain a rest. As far as he knew there wasn’t any rule against it, as the gatehouse guard would ­say.

  Jack cycled over to Hangar Number One where Harold stood by the door holding a dingy white mug of coffee and talking to Angus, his ­second-­in-command on the maintenance crew. Harold was beefy like a football player, with no neck to speak of, while Angus had a paunch that hung over his ­leather-­belted work ­pants.

  “What’s this, then?” asked Angus, running his hand through his thinning brown hair. “Where’d you pick up this wee laddie?”

  “Tell him the story, Jackie,” Harold said, “but I’ve got to get back to work. And I’ve got lots for you to do. Poor old 3070 caught a duck in its propeller and fuselage. Start with that. Clean it out.” He walked off. “Oh, and tie the dog close to the repair shop. I’ll keep an eye on him. Angus can show you what to do.”

  Angus didn’t seem in a hurry as Jack told about the rescue. Angus had a border collie himself, back in Edmonton, that his brother was keeping for him, and he gave Jack all sorts of tips about raising a good ­dog.

  “Border collies like to take care of a group, a herd, a bunch of things, preferably sheep. But they’ll herd you if you let them. Train them to take care of things, and they’re happy as clams.”

  Jack sighed. “I don’t think I can keep him.”

  “Wish I could help you out.” Angus led the way to the tractor at the far corner of the shed. “Rev this fellow up and haul 2804 and 2805 out on the tarmac and give ’em a wash. Get the duck out of the works on 3070. Then fill all these babies with gas so they’re set to take off with the new blokes.”

  Jack whistled as he started up the tractor, headed down the centre of the hangar to the far end and located 2804 and 2805, spattered in mud, as if whoever landed them had driven through the swampy area at the end of the west ­strip.

  Tiger Moths were an easy plane to fly – sometimes too easy, Sandy had told Jack. Young pilots became overconfident and didn’t slow down enough, or they didn’t get the nose headed into the wind when they came in to land. Most said they were hard to land. Jack hadn’t gotten that far. Sandy had landed the plane when he’d given Jack that day of ­lessons.

  He was grateful for all the flying tips he’d picked up. If a fellow kept his ears open, he could learn a lot around the base. And if he could get through the work on time, he would ask Mabel for a ­half-­hour on the Link Trainer. He never got tired of that. Mabel, the best instructor on the base, knew how Jack longed to fly. Harold and Angus wondered why Jack liked to “play” at flying, but Mabel understood why he showed up in the strange circular Link room with its domed ceiling representing the ­sky.

  Jack hooked the towing cable onto the front of 2804, ready to haul it outside through the open hangar doors. Thank goodness there wasn’t a strong wind on the runway, or he wouldn’t be able to do this on his own. Small birds twittered and flitted back and forth like tiny kites in the massive struts and beams that held up the hangar ­roof.

  Ever so carefully, Jack drove the tractor with the yellow biplane trailing behind it through the massive doors of Hangar ­One.

  He remembered watching this hangar being built. The foreman of the construction crew, who bought coffee from Jack when he used to cycle out to the base, saw he was interested and taught him things he could never have learned in ­school.

  The guy had told him that this was by far the biggest construction job Canada had ever been involved in. “After this we’ll be a world power, Jackie boy,” he’d said. “The British Commonwealth Air Training Plan will put Canada on the world map, you wait and see. There’s nearly a hundred of these aerodromes across the country, and I helped build the prairie ones.”

  Jack had rarely seen anyone so proud of what he was ­doing.

  “I may not get any medals for this, but I’ll know when we win the air war that I did a good job. If a man can say that about his work, he can die happy.”

  Jack had never forgotten the guy’s enthusiasm. He himself would never fly a fighter plane either, but maybe helping at the airfield was enough. He towed the beautiful little plane ­outside.

  Buddy barked and whined, so Jack jumped down and ran over to fetch the dog and tie him up by the first light standard on the field. Then he jogged back to the tractor and towed the biplane to the left side of the tarmac. Buddy barked his ­encouragement.

  He climbed up into the front cockpit first and tidied it. He hung his head outside as much as he could, with the Perspex canopy pushed right back. The inside reeked of old sweat, oil, gas and metal. A crumpled Chiclets box and a wadded tissue curled on the ­floor.

  Jack took a damp rag and washed down the controls, cleaning the windows on the dials, wiping down the speaker tube, the metal student pilot seat, even the rudder pedals on the floor. Thank goodness the last user hadn’t barfed. He’d had to clean that up often ­enough.

  The cockpit clean, Jack inserted himself, like a sausage in a skin, into the front seat. It was a tight fit. How on earth would a bigger guy squeeze in, let alone be able to move? A tall black metal rod, the control stick, sat between his legs. The left and right rudder controls were on the floor at his feet. There were several gauges – for oil pressure, airspeed, turn coordinator, compass, and altimeter. The throttle was to his­ left.

  Suddenly he was back in that day with Sandy, roaring down the runway, then lifting into the bright sky. The little biplane had rattled and groaned, the wings tipped, and the ground sped by, and he was enthralled by the wonder of seeing forever and soaring free of the ground. That day would stay with him for the rest of his ­life.

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bsp; He cleaned out the instructor’s cockpit, slid to the ground and went for the hose. He took a side trip over to Buddy, gave him food and water, and played with him for a moment. The pup rolled and wiggled and panted. He licked Jack’s hand, his pink tongue quicker than a slippery, ­fresh-­caught fish from Thunder Creek. Somewhere inside, Jack felt like ice was melting. He hugged the dog and decided it was time to get back to ­work.

  An automobile roared up and came to an abrupt stop. Buddy trembled, anticipating trouble. Four English lacs – Leading Aircraftsmen, or Lowly Air Crew as the village called them – spilled out of the clunker, a ’36 Chevy with its roof gone, that the students seemed to pass down like a used suit of clothes. Jack couldn’t imagine how it managed to keep going. Rumour said some Brit had paid ­twenty-­five dollars for it a year ago. He’d bought it from a farm boy over near ­Mortlach.

  “I say, is that your dog?” asked the driver, a short, ­dark-­haired young man, not much older than Jack. “Is he a purebred border collie?”

  Jack shook his head. “No, his father’s a border collie, but his mother had lab and terrier in her.”

  “Is he for sale?” a blond fellow with flashing blue eyes ­asked.

  “Are you daft, Basil?” said the driver. “We can’t keep a pup.”

  “Why not?” Basil came over to Buddy. “He could be the mascot of this blighted bunch of blokes. I’m Basil, by the way.” Basil was like a walking advertisement for a handsome British flyer – blond, fit and smartly ­dressed.

  “He’s my dog,” said Jack, standing up beside ­Buddy.

  “Be a good chappie and let us borrow him for a bit.” Basil was tickling Buddy under the chin. “We’re only here for a couple of months.”

  The two other fellows joined in. “I could build him a doghouse behind our ­h-­hut,” said one of them. “He’s more friendly than the sergeant, by crikey,” added the other. “More handsome too.”